Blog Post

— *Sony* losing less money on PS3’s : Gamasutra reports on a new iSuppli report about the PlayStation 3’s manufacturing costs — noting that it costs Sony (NYSE: SNE) about $449 to make a PS3. The consoles retail for $399 — a major improvement over how much it used to cost to produce them — meaning Sony only loses about $50 on every one sold. iSuppli estimates the original $599 model cost Sony upwards of $840 to manufacture. The savings have stemmed from a number of sources: cheaper prices on components like chips and graphics cards, as well as fewer parts overall. And if Sony’s goal is to move closer to breaking even (or even profiting) from the PS3, then the analysts (and consumers) pushing for the company to come down on the price may be out of luck.

— Steam lets Euro gamers download EA bestsellers sans DRM : EA is making some of its most popular recent releases — Spore, Mass Effect and Need for Speed Underground, among others — available for download via Steam, a third-party gaming platform developed by Valve. The games all come DRM-free, but the caveat for U.S. gamers is that they’re only available in Europe, with additional titles like Mirror’s Edge and others coming soon. Full details on paidContent:UK.

— Take-Two (NSDQ: TTWO) paid out the wazoo to fend off EA : Buried within Take-Two’s poor Q4 earnings report were details about how much it cost the GTA publisher to fend off EA’s hostile takeover: $11.1 million. The company attributed the charges partly to the “strategic review process” that ultimately led it to repeatedly dismiss EA’s offer as “inadequate,” per GameSpot.